Month: February 2017

Musical Theatre

I declared that I would buy season tickets for my mom and me to the musical theatre whenever I got my first full-time, normal-ish job.  So, when I had my first contracted teaching job, I got season tickets.  For two years, we stayed with it, and it was great.  But then I moved here (Japan), and so we stopped the tickets for this current season.

However, I want to speak to two of the shows from those two seasons.   The two shows to which I looked the most forward were The Little Mermaid and Evita.  I quite likely know (or at least knew at some point) all the words to all of the songs in both of these two musicals, I love them so much.  Until these past two years, though, I had never seen either performance (just the movies).

When we finally made it to the performance of each show, rather than being overwhelmed with delight, I was actually rather let-down.  Why?  Because my favorite songs were cut.  Yup.  Really.

In The Little Mermaid, the US theatre folk decided to make a different song for Ursula, even declaring it better for children.  Except that this new song was significantly less exciting musically, and it had a terrible message being sent loud and clear, so to speak – I was hated, because I was ugly, so I killed my sisters in order to win my father’s favor.  The whole reason I had ever wanted to see the stage production of The Little Mermaid was for Ursula’s song (“I Want the Good Times Back“).  And it had suddenly disappeared.  My excitement for the show went with it – it just became some average show at that point.  Not that I don’t find the performers to be totally talented – because I do find them talented – I was just not so thrilled about the show itself at that point.

The story of Evita was similar, but not so distressing.  Rather than replacing one of my favorite songs, the song just disappeared.  (“The Lady’s Got Potential“)  Also, I think one of my preferred verses of another song was missing, but I’m not sure.  I just remember the rock song with the fabulous words, “Ka-pow, die!” was missing.  😛  Naturally, I was disappointed in the missing chunk of the show.  Performers were still talented; the show itself was just lacking.

 

I’m not sure why I decided to share this in particular, instead of the silly afternoon and evening I spent at the gym, doing yoga classes and boxing classes, and what might have been a tai-chi class; chatting with all the ladies afterward; running into one of the ladies afterward at the supermarket; her asking if I’d bought my vegetables; my explaining how I hadn’t bought any vegetables, because I couldn’t until tomorrow, since the ATMs were already closed and I had no cash (jolly dreadful bit of living in Japan, really), so I had just bought a snack with the 100-yen coin I’d found in my bag; ending up having a fabulous Nepalese dinner with her (at her total insistence); rushing out as smoking was allowed just after 8pm in the restaurant; and then, again at her total insistence, being driven home the short distance from the restaurant by the wonderful lady.  And I even remember her name still.  Anyway, I guess the outline is all you get.  Have a great one, world!

 

Post-a-day 2017

 

Sisterhood of the Traveling Scarves…?

I like to knit.  Crocheting is nice, too, but I tend to knit much more often.  I think I prefer the patterning of knitting to that of crocheting.  Crocheting to me is like hipster headbands, baby blankets, and huge afghans.  Whereas knitting is more anything clothing, and even various accessories, too (think bags and such).  So, while I do both, I tend to knit more than crochet.

That being said, the thing I knit the most is scarves.  Why?  Because they are simple and rather quick, and it is utterly satisfying to have something materialize before my eyes so quickly, and with what feels like such little (and typically meditative) effort.  It’s always a sort of medicine for me, I think, making scarves.  I often just make them, simply because I’ve come across a yarn that I particularly like and can see being a fabulous scarf.  I find someone to whom I can give it eventually, usually… sometimes, anyway.

I do tend to make a lot of scarves as gifts in this manner, though.  Sometimes I actually go to the store when there’s a sale, and I bring a list of people for whom I want to make scarves this year, and I pick out yarns for each of their scarves.  I almost always get a few extras for unexpected add-ons to the list later on.

I had done just this recently, and was doing some volunteering for the International Weightlifting Federation’s World Championship, when several of the weightlifters and coaches saw my scarf-making.  They would pass by me on their way to a meal, and comment on the fact that I was knitting at my station.  (My response to the inquiries were that I was simply working on Christmas presents.  Which I was.)  When they were later leaving from their meal, they would be shocked and would comment on the great progress I had made in the scarf – it typically took me a single shift to make a full scarf (if that long).  And, eventually, some of these people either asked or hinted (and I, of course, offered) for me to make a scarf for them.

So, that week sent my scarves around the world to France, either Guatemala or Ecuador (I honestly don’t remember which – I just remember that they team had lots of yellow on their warm-ups, I always spoke to the girl in Spanish, and they were from somewhere down south of Texas), and Italy.  Now, I have scarves currently residing in Japan from this year’s Christmas presents, and future Canadian, Jamaican, and Australian residents.

For whatever reason, this incredibly excites me.  Not only do I travel the world in little bits, but so does my art!  😀

Who knew scarves could travel so far and wide?

 

Post-a-day 2017

Winter, Wait – Weight, Workout

Tonight, at the gym, I did a workout class that I’ve been wanting to do for a while now.  It was painfully hard, that class.  And not necessarily because the workout is a difficult one.  Yes, the workout was difficult and fast and rather nonstop.  But the hardest part of it was how my usual self could have kept up with it.

Right now, I don’t even want to weigh myself, because I know I haven’t been gaining any muscles lately, and I have definitely gained a whole extra layer of fat throughout a good portion of my body.  I have been through various weights, for sure, but I typically have a point which I never pass.  I am almost certain that I am past that point now.  I have never had the peeping of my belly be an issue before, because my belly has always looked nice.  Even when it had extra weight to it, it was a nice, smooth, ladylike curve.  It suggested a bit of plumpness to it, but still looked healthy.  Today, when I raised my arms in a stretch at work, I was saddened by the sight.  No longer do I have the cute belly peeping beneath the raised shirt.  It isn’t terrible, of course, but cute and feminine are no longer ways to describe it.

So, in this workout class this evening, as I was in a tremendous physical and mental struggle, tears were brimming at one point.  I initially thought to fight them off.  But then I realized that that was exactly why I was here in the class – because this kind of thing is hard for me right now, and I want to deal with that.  So, I let some tears have their say, and I put extra effort into what I was doing.  I was lame and slow for a lot of it, I couldn’t even do one of the exercises (going to talk with the teacher about how it’s meant to be done, and see what stretching would help me best to do the exercise), and, by the end, my whole face was flushed and I could barely breathe or move.  But I stuck it out.  I even stayed for the relaxation yoga class afterward, even though I was exhausted (mentally, physically, and sleep-wise) and ready for bed.

I even talked with one of the girls afterward about my wanting to come more often to the gym, as well as my struggle to do so (being depressed really does suck).  Today’s been a sort of up day for me, and I’m hoping to have a similar one tomorrow, so that I might start myself on a habit with going to the gym on days when I’m not already working just down the street from it.

Peace and Love, and Goodnight, folks.  😀

 

Post-a-day 2017

 

Stuffed Animals

I love stuffed animals.  Really, I do.  I sleep with them almost every night (when I’m at home, anyway), because they give me constant comfort.  These creatures love me for everything that I am and for everything that I am not.  They snuggle and cuddle willingly with me as much as I want, and none of us minds if someone wants to scoot away a bit during the night (though falling off the bed is always a ghastly event, and we work together to bring back the overboard sleeper).

Right now, I have a large elephant from IKEA, who pretends he’s a person, wrapping his “arms” around me whenever I sleep on my side; and I have a small (though, normal for a stuffed animal) dog who typically sleeps on my chest, and who came to me probably a decade or so ago from my childhood best friend, Jennifer.  They are both incredibly soft and wonderful snugglers.  I love having them in my life and I love them.  No matter my day and no matter how I’m feeling, these guys are ready for me each night, and they hold me just a tight as before, surrounding me with love (as best only two can manage when it comes to the surrounding part).

In college, a friend was staying over at our flat one night (I had a full-sized bed), and she said I slept in the jungle, because of all of my stuffed animals.  I really did have a lot at that time, though.  A small, round tiger; a very large Pink Panther; this same dog here; another dog, too, I think; and a few more I don’t quite recall at the moment…  Essentially, it could feel like a full house, even when I was the only person in the mix.  And, possibly the best part is that none of them cares about getting smushed, so I can roll and turn and crush and cuddle however I please, and they’ll all be happy as ever.  

Stuffed animals are possibly better than real people, actually.  I always struggle to snuggle comfortably with people – it’s almost effortless with my stuffed animals, though. Ten minutes max, and I’m out, totally happily asleep.  With people, I shift and adjust and squiggle, until I finally give up and roll away to rest solo.  Yeah,… maybe I needn’t worry so much about having a husband or anything – we wouldn’t be able to snuggle at night like I’d want anyway, so I might as well stick with the stuffed animals.  ;P  Hehe
Post-a-day 2017

Valentine’s Day

Today is Valentine’s Day.  And what did I do?  Did I make personalized valentines, either digital or hard copy?  Did I bring candies or sweets or something homemade for anyone?  Did I do much of anything at all to celebrate the day?  No.  I 100% didn’t care about its being Valentine’s Day, and then worried about the fact that I somehow didn’t care.  It’s just not me*.

And what did I actually do?  I asked if someone would be able to replace me in two months, should I decide I needed to go ahead and leave my job at the end of the school year (four months earlier than the end of my contract).

And, you know what?  I was terrified asking, I mentioned that in the asking, as well as my reasoning, and then, afterward, I suddenly feel a sense of liberation.  A tightness has disappeared from my disposition.  I don’t know what the response will be, but I asked.  So now, I will have the choice to make for myself, being fully informed of options, as opposed to just rolling with the current terms of things, which I so utterly dislike.  (I mostly just dislike the person I am being and am currently on a path to become.)

Anyway, here’s to new beginnings and speaking up and everything that we struggle with doing, but that is necessary for us to live with intention, power, and integrity.  🙂

 

*I, I know.

Post-a-day 2017

Update:  She said no.  No one can come replace me in April.  So, now I know.  Now I just have to look and see what I want to do with what’s in front of me!  I think a lot of unreasonable requests are about to happen, so that I can find a way to make this all work.  🙂

 

Winter Weight

When I’m stuck in the dead of winter, my body shares in that feeling of utter ugh-ness the weather brings to my mental state.  It is cold and miserable outdoors right now, and my body knows it, and only wants to stay bundled up indoors, watching films until Spring shows up.  Not to be cheesy, of course, but I’ll be quite ready to spring into action then, getting outdoors as much as possible each day.  I feel so stagnant in the cold, and it shows on my body, as well as on my mental health.

I make sure to vary my activities, so as to keep my brain working alright in winter.  Yes, I reach the downs much more often than desired, but I always manage to work through them, even if I have to ask for help to do it.  However, these activities are all related to my mental health, and are usually confined to managing myself within my apartment or at work.  That is to say, they are not outdoor, and therefore not very active, activities.

When the weather is decent to almost any degree, I find it so easy to be active out-of-doors.  This outdoor activity is the near-entirety of my physical exercise (read “workouts”) in life.  And so, when you remove these outdoor events, you remove almost all physical exercise I have in my life.

And, with that removal of exercise, comes the arrival of fat.  And, as many of us know, with the new fat, comes new and lowered levels of confidence and empowerment related to my body.  Sure, it’s just my winter weight, so to speak, but if I get a vacation to, say Singapore, there isn’t much delight in running around in my summer clothes that don’t quite fit the way they’re meant to fit me.  (I say this, because it’s already happened, you see.)  Even the loose-fitting stuff doesn’t quite fit so comfortably.  Though it might still look good on me, it is difficult to be comfortable when the formerly-loose clothes feel almost binding.

Now, I don’t have anywhere in particular that I was aiming to send this writing – it was just what was on my mind tonight.  I feel fat.  I have more fat than I want right now.  I dislike the feel and the look of it all.  I long for summer and summertime activities, making it all feel even worse right now (because I’m too fat for the summer stuff right now, remember).  And, despite all of this, I still have no motivation to get out in the cold – no way.  😛

I guess there’s no chance of my ever moving permanently somewhere cold.  (Although, I think having a dryer, as well as cold-weather clothing that actually fit me, would make a world of a difference for me, as I was out and running regularly in the snow in Vienna.)

Anyway, … ugh.  I even did a real workout today, here at home, and I’m feeling like this.  Haha.  What crazy minds we have, huh?  Okay, I’m going to go read.  Goodnight, folks!

 

Post-a-day 2017

 

 

Life Goals…?

If you know me personally, don’t freak out, okay?

Now, I have this strange feeling that I have a somewhat unreasonable but real desire powering me into this next year of my life.  It’s not as though I am actively thinking, “This is why I am doing this,” or whatever.  It’s more like a secret desire and hope that is hanging out in the background of my mind and life, ever so slightly prodding me to be successful in all of my endeavors.

I am planning out my move back to the US this late summer, and I am emphasizing doing what I love to do, things that bring me true joy and fulfillment, and which easily bring forth the full efforts of my heart.  My time here in Japan has shown me that I do, in fact, love teaching, but that there is much more that I want to have be part of my daily and weekly life.  (And that I want to eat loads of fruit all the time.)  I also still hold that I want to make a comfortable amount of money, to where I can still always buy lunch for my friends, get an extra gelato at midnight, and go on random trips every month-ish.  So, I have this really neat and flexible plan for moving back to the States and getting myself in line with all of those things.

The biggest thing that has come up for me in all of this “life searching”, so to call it, though, is my love of children, and finally acknowledging that I want a child of my own, in my own home.  With this, of course, also came the acceptance of the idea that I want to adopt a child, and not birth one myself. (Though I’ve never liked the idea of giving birth, it’s certainly not the reason for wanting to adopt, – there’s a whole background to the adoption idea for me – but skipping the pains of birth is a great perquisite to adoption.)

And so, with all of that in mind, I find myself somehow secretly excited about finding a comfortable routine and financial balance in my next year.  Even though I know it might not even happen, the idea of being at a place where I could consider adopting, is… , well…, empowering.  It excites me about my next set of endeavors, and in a way I have never been excited about things.  This one, in a way, is somewhat selfless.  Yes, I want the child to be in my life and all.  But the whole goal is to give love and everything wonderful to another.  So, in a way, it’s like everything I do is for that someone else now.  Even if that someone else never ends up coming along for me, it’s an aim, a possibility, that empowers me to be and do the best I can.

I’m not so sure that I did a very good job of expressing all of this, and I know I’ve left loads of it out of the above text, but I just wanted to share it, at least in some degree, with the world.  I want a kid.  And I want to do what I can to create my beautiful dream life now, so that that kid can join me, and (semi-) soon.  🙂
Post-a-day 2017

Yoga and Winter Blues

Right as I was heading through the rising action into the climax of a film I was watching before bed this evening, my best friend and I ended up texting one another over some e-mails and SNL (Saturday Night Live) sketches from earlier in the day, and, since we were already interacting, she invited me to do yoga with her.  Naturally, I knew she meant from some online video, and not something that required me to leave my living room or put on real clothes, because, as you might already know (click here to know how you might already know), we are living in different countries (England and Japan).  Since my life is totally normal and all, I had no hesitation in pausing the movie at 10pm to do a 30-minute yoga set for winter blues with my bestie.

We put up FaceTime on my laptop and her phone, so we could see one another and be together, and then we synchronized the youtube video on each of our computers (I then muted mine, having us both listening to her computer, but each watching on our own screens).  It took us a bit to get started, as we went back and forth about whether or not to wear bras and pants (American pants, as we already had the British ones), but I finally gave up on trying to find either, and settled myself in front of the heater to keep my legs warm (since I wasn’t sitting underneath a super cozy blanket anymore).  The only requirement was doing downward dog facing one another, so we wouldn’t get a face full of bums on our screens…. except that we still discussed and tested doing downward dog from facing away from one another (I put on a scarf as a sort of half-loincloth in the back), so as to establish that we could, in fact, look at one another during the pose, delighting in one another’s faces (despite the legs and bums also noticeably visible).

And so we did a wonderful little yoga set from this great girl in Austin, Texas (who happens to have a strong resemblance to a friend of ours from high school).  We chuckled.  I made all sorts of silly noises (thanks to my It is freakin’ cold here, how on Earth do people function like at all in this country in wintertime lack of outdoorsiness (and thereby exercise) these past two-ish months).  And we never really flashed one another.  (Though downward dog is quite funny when your own shirt is loose, and shivs down (up?) over your eyes as your put your head downward.)  And it was great.  Totally simple.  Totally normal (for us, anyway, though I’m not sure we’ve ever done this together before).  Totally great.

I love best friends.  I love being naturally silly.  I love yoga.  I love my best friend.  I love warm weather.

And I love that we’re still on FaceTime with one another, though I’m busy writing and she’s busy eating lunch and reading, and we aren’t even talking to one another right now – we’re just hanging out together, and I love it.

 

P.S.  In case you, too, want to beat the winter blues (I really do love the music kind, though), here’s the video we used.  Take special care to note her various comments throughout the set, as well as the dog that shows up in the final couple seconds of the video.

 

Post-a-day 2017

#yogawithadrienne #winterblues

 

Smokers in Japan

Today, in a Facebook miniature back-and-forth, a few friends and I discussed the extreme situation of smoking in Japan.  I specifically mentioned how I had thought that Europeans smoked a lot.  That is, of course, until I came to Japan.

Here, in Japan, people smoke practically everywhere.  There are signs on the sidewalks declaring it illegal to walk and smoke, yet people do it anyway.  There are official smoking stops around all the public places (train stations and malls and such), as well as smoking rooms in most establishments.  However, smoking is also permitted in the main areas of most establishments (mostly restaurants and bars of almost any kind, it feels).  And, even if it is not allowed, and there is a separate smoking room, you will find your hair and clothes fully permeated with the reek of cigarettes after your meal, as the air systems just pull smoke right from wherever people are smoking, into the restaurant where you’d thought you’d be free of smoke.

Essentially, once I leave my apartment (save the grocery store and clothing stores), I am surrounded by either diesel or cigarette fumes.

And, possibly the worst part about the smoking, is that people smoke the crappiest of crap cigarettes.  You know the ones, I’m sure – the ones that just plain hurt, they’re so nasty, and which hardly even have a tinge of tobacco (as opposed to ones that uphold the original intention of smoking tobacco by smelling of tobacco).

Now, while the floor in malls with restaurants usually allows smoking, the levels with shops do not allow it.  There are usually several smoking areas in these malls, though, oftentimes indoors, but sometimes only outdoors.

Tonight, as a friend and I were wandering a mall to find food, we stopped at a bathroom on one of the shops floors.  And, in the bathroom, what to my wondering ears and eyes should appear, but a terrible smell and a grey line of smoke.  Rising from the occupied stall next to mine was an undeniable rising of cigarette smoke.

I mean, Really?!?!?!?!  Goodness gracious, Japan.

I told my (Japanese) friend when I left the bathroom, and she couldn’t believe it.  “Go look!”  I told her.

She did.  She came back laughing at the utter ridiculousness of it, and in near-disbelief.  We were both flummoxed, though I somehow was hardly surprised at it.  People here just smoke like no other.  Truly, they do.

They be crazy up in here, yo!
Haha
Post-a-day 2017